"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
11-11-2020, 04:17 PM (This post was last modified: 11-11-2020, 04:19 PM by Moonlet.
Edit Reason: paragraph spacing
)
The thing’s (creature seems not quite accurate for something shadowy and insubstantial) pleasure is palpable and mounting; she can feel it as it envelopes her and it feels like the cool damp of fog on skin or the chill coming off a freshly dug grave. It makes her shiver just a little but she never takes her eyes off it - it’s too important not to watch despite the growing legion around them that call out their answers in turn. Most prefer tricks and only a few, the treats. She is in that lesser group and wonders, for just a moment, if she’s made a mistake.
Moonlet has never been a trickster though. Mischief has its place but rarely does it tickle a bone in her body. Usually she is too nice for that, except for when she was bold and blatantly rude because she doesn’t hold back. The thing though, is accorded more respect than that and it shows in the demure but focused stance of her. She almost leans in closer to feel a little more of that wild scary pleasure that radiates off the thing, entranced by it and how it seems to grow more substantial though still shapeless as their answers fill it up like food.
Then it waves what seems like a hand and all those that picked the option of trick vanish into thin air like they’d never been there to begin with. Her eyes widened in surprise as a theatrical burst of smoke and sound filled the area to accessorize their vanishing. Or disguise it… she wasn’t sure but since it had little to do with her, she didn’t dwell on it for too long. So she goes back to watching the thing as it manifests the very thing that the rest of them have said - treats.
Only what each horse sees seems to differ because none of them are the same, so their experiences can’t be either. The particular treat that manifests in front of her has all the same theatrical trappings that she half expected of the thing now. All smoke and mirrors and outward pizzazz, just like the gift that presented itself in shiny black and orange satin with matching big poofy bow tied up all nice and neat.
Not that she would have ordinarily known what all this was but for the quest’s sake, the knowledge has been imparted to her. She snorts in excitement and prances in place for a few minutes - all the marks of a kid giddy with happiness and excitement at what could be contained in such a pretty medium-sized box. She reaches out with her nose to touch it but can’t quite reach it.
Hm, that’s odd.
She tries again, almost tripping in her desire to reach the present and her neck is so ridiculously stretched out that it’s uncomfortable and starting to hurt. Moonlet snorts again, this time in annoyance and stamps a good as she considers the situation. How and why is the present able to appear so close but then isn’t it? Why, magic of course! Or a test of such, she figures. Not quite testing if she is magical but moving the present out of her reach by magical means and she has to be smart enough to figure out how to get to it.
Because now it is so very very far away as if all this distance came zooming in between the gift and her. Dizzyingly so, before blurred edges resolved themes led into the firm line of a forested chasm. She can still see patches of night sky but the trees loom close, reaching out with branch-like arms and fingers as if they’ll claw her. It makes her think the trees are hungry and might gobble her up. Then she laughs because they’re not that scary after all - she’s stood before a dragon and stated that she wouldn’t make a good meal!
Besides, who ever heard of a tree devouring a horse?
The bay cocks her head, considering. Her choices are slim: go forward and try to reach the present or remain and bow out gracefully. Moonlet decided she wasn’t going to be a quitter despite how gnarly that forested chasm looked and how dark the night was as it pressed in around her. Spooky is as spooky does and it sure was shaping up to be one spooky adventure! She leapt forward at the challenge but eventually slowed her pace to conserve speed and energy as using up neither seemed to get her any closer to the prize at the end.
So she walked and walked and walked some more. She kept walking and had no idea as to how much time had come to pass because it felt like she’d been walking for forever. In all reality, she probably hadn’t - it had probably only been an hour or so. She was no closer to the present and it was beginning to feel a lot like a carrot dangling from the end of a stick that she’d never get. Maybe that was the point?
There must have been a lesson in all of this or, she was thinking too hard. Maybe it was a bit of both as she walked on. She swore in this ghastly silence, that she could hear the thump thump thump of her own heartbeat. It sounded crazy loud, like her heart was outside her body and walking beside her. She paused, then took a step and heard the thump again. Her ears pinned back to her head and the whites of her eyes began to show.
This was all just too weird and spooky! But she promised not to quit. So another step forward, another companionable thump or that’s how she likes to think of it because the other alternative was something preternatural that went bump in the night and we’ll, she just didn’t want to think about that. Thump. Thump. Thump. Plodding along in time to the thudding footfalls of the little bay mare. It made her skin crawl with the heebie jeebies until the thumps sounded even louder…
Like right underneath her!
She stopped and looked all around and down between her legs…. nothing! Absolutely nothing! Then a twig broke and the trees or shadows moved in a menacing fashion and a rabbit broke out of the clutches of the forest. It was pale and beautiful and cute and furry and small, like all rabbits should be so she laughed out loud at herself until the rabbit halted and twisted its head around to look at her —
ZOMBIE RABBIT!
It’s throat was torn out and it’s front was bloodied, the eyes milky with death still seemed to find her and then, it opened its mouth and hissed at her. But the mouth was wrong too because it had very sharp teeth and fresh blood dripped from its jaws as if it had just eaten a hearty meal. Hearty, ha ha ha. Get it? Zombie-Thumper had a half-eaten heart in its paws that was still thumping away with life despite no connection to blood or a body.
Moonlet was naturally creeped out and grossed out, which made itself known in a snorty “Ewww!” before she began to back away but the undead rabbit decided to hop alongside her regardless. She sighed and resumed the endless walk towards the gift with the zombie thumping alongside. Sometimes you just have to go along for the ride with the things that go bump in the night and a zombie rabbit couldn’t be any worse of a haunt and a ‘bump’ than she was likely to get.
Just as long as it didn’t try to eat her next but it seemed content to pace her with that eerie resonant thump thump thump, so like a heartbeat. In time, it became an acceptable rhythm that the two moved in tandem along to. As long as she kept her eyes on that pretty black and orange prize at the end of the never ending road.
Mother is the name for god
in the lips & hearts of little children
The rest followed, trick….treat…..trick…, Whisteria’s eyes glowed. She was definitely curious, and after all she has been through she was excited to receive a lovely surprise present. Her mind reeled with possibilities, What could it be?, she thought to herself. Soon her questions would be answered, one by one the others beside her began to fade away. It was now she started to question the likelihood that this was all just one big trick...what if this creature had come to reclaim her and drag her back to the afterlife. She trembled in place, she wasn’t backing down, but she was fearful. The creature waved a cloaked arm and the ground began to rumble slightly underhoof. Her blue eyes were drawn to the ground before her as green roots began to sprout forth from the earth. A large blossom rose up from the base of the root system, growing unnaturally fast, and its beautiful white petals unfurled to reveal a shimmering gift within. Her eyes widened and glimmered with joy. Oh wow! This is wonderful!, she exclaimed, her mind now completely disregarding the fact that the others had disappeared now.
She was about to thank the creature as she reached her muzzle toward the gift within the bloom, but she felt the roots at its base shoot forth and wrapped tightly around her ankles. She squealed in horror as it started coiling tightly and higher on her legs and the massive bloom rose high above her, and let out a terrifying roar. She wondered if this would be a trick, but she did not even fathom this to be a possibility. Though the vines held her tightly, she was not going to go out without at least putting up a hell of a fight. There was no way her favorite thing in the world would be the death of her. Her brow furrowed and she squealed again, this time in a more threatening manner. She kicked out hard trying to shake the vines loose, but their grip was too tight, it was trying to pull her closer. Looking around frantically, her eyes caught a glimmer of something just below the bloom, a shimmering gold thread that was hanging loose, it looked almost like a popped seam. It was then that an idea sprouted in her mind. Hm...want me closer? I will come closer!, she spat with a taunting tone, she was going to give this thing a taste. She launched forward with teeth bared, reaching for the golden thread with all of her strength. It was close, and she almost missed it, but she managed to snag the very end of it between her front teeth.
It was her chance, probably her only chance. She hoped with all of her heart that this would do what she thought. Using the last of her strength, Whisteria thrust her head down and to the side with such force that pain shot through her neck. She almost let out a pained scream, but she knew she had to keep hold of the thread. Luckily, she was right. The force tugged on the thread so hard that it sliced down through the stem of the plant. It let out the most ear piercing scream and it began to thrash wildly. Gold ooze flowed from the slice in its neck, the screams now more gurgled than before. Whisteria felt the grip loosen on her limbs and she finally was able to kick herself loose, landing hard on her side as she was dropped to the ground. Getting back to her feet quickly, she dodged the angry flailing vines of the plant. Each swipe came dangerously close as she began to lose steam, but she couldn’t give up. She looked around for something to help her, as she was a woman with no traits or powers to aid her. She had to rely on sheer instinct and her own strength. A sharp, wide stick on the ground caught her eye, and she snatched it up between her teeth and charged forward, snaking through and jumping the writhing green vines as she went. Her aim was flawless, eye on the prize. She threw herself at the cut in the stem and jabbed the steak into it with all of her might, and tore it diagonally, effectively slicing the bloom off of the stem. With one last scream the bloom came crashing down to the ground in a loud, squelching thud. The once wild vines and root system fell dormant, and the air was still once again. Whisteria stood before it, her sides heaving at an insane rate, gold ooze from the plant splattered across her chest and face like war paint. Spitting the gold dripping steak to the ground, she strode forward with her head held high to claim her prize from the maw of the slain bloom. She gently peeled the petals away, revealing her beauteous gift once more, and shot a glance at the cloaked creature that still loomed before the doors.
The others here, they hardly notice me, nor I them. It’s so unlike she had said things would go. But maybe this is all just temporary - a peculiar dream and nothing more.
The Dark Thing remains unspeaking, though I can’t shake the feeling that I am hovering on the precipice of some kind of dynamic energy mounting. The fine silvery hair along my bony neck rises to stand on end, and then just a suddenly as the world goes black, a column of ghostly light lands at the toes of my hooves. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, and I utilize the time to steady both my breathing and heart alike.
The place, it turns out, is one that I know well. Years ago, I had been left in this cave hidden in the darkest parts of the Forest. It was nothing spectacular, this place, just a coincidental collision of pockmarked boulders and uprooted trees. The dead roots nestled perfectly against the opening of the cave, making it the ideal comfortable prison at its founding and later on, after she stopped coming by, what I’d refer to as Home.
Trust me, Sweetling, I can almost hear her whispered echo from the mouth of the cave, Stay here, they’ll never love you like I do.
And again I’m left to wonder if the moments just before weren’t simply a dream. But I have lingering doubts that refuse to subside. The sounds and scents of the this same cave collapsing had felt so real; the cuts and bruises and wheeze of my lungs when the dust settled had felt like proof of reality enough. And this darkness that surrounds me now feels bitter and hopeless and empty, as though all traces of life had vacated. So contrary to the rich, glistening depths of my cave that I had learned the intricacies of.
I feel as though I’m an outsider in a place that should feel inviting. And that odd sensation of being a stranger in my own home drives out and into the waiting pillars of forest trees. Greyscale and mute in color, their bare branches clattered harmoniously together on a windless night.
I follow a path saturated with sallow grey moonlight, in search of an answer to a question I don’t entirely understand and one I fear I may not recognize. But just up ahead, the bend in obstructed by something ethereal and unwavering.
Something. A horse?
Reluctantly, I step closer, trying to ignore that same dynamic presence of energy I’d felt with the Dark Thing before. And when I’m finally just close enough, I immediately wish I’d turned around sooner. Hollow sockets where eyes might’ve been before had turned to face me, had paralyzed me where I stood. Lacking in ears, smooth skin where nostrils should’ve curved, and a mouth impossibly wide and agape as if frozen in eternal shock - the being watched me. Her mane and tail, unkempt and gray, floated eerily in streaming banners as though she were submerged in water. The legs were impossibly long and slender, bent grotesquely at the knees in the opposite direction an averages horses would.
How do you move? I wondered aloud, absently. And as if the creature could hear me, faded out of existence as if to answer. Then painstakingly slow, she emerged from the Nothing again, much closer this time, as if the faux gray moonlight were pouring itself into her insubstantial shape and filling the empty spaces between her ragged outline.
If I were thinking clearly, her movement might’ve reminded me of a firefly flickering in and out of a sweltering summer night. But I haven’t the luxury of what would have been a pleasant analogy because as the the last of the filtered glowing light reaches the top of her poll, something toxic and sickly laps at the edge of my consciousness.
It’s excruciating and desolate and foreign, grief that is not my own and pain that I have never tasted before.
I hadn’t noticed she had started singing; Not until my pale eyes are able to refocus again, and my ears train forward, coming to alert as my instincts finally begin to rally at the threat of danger. Her song low and mournful at first, began rising in pitch and grandeur, the agony in her voice began to feel less of an imposing itch and more like claws raking across my soul.
Then the wailing came.
Then howling.
Then screaming. The screaming.
I recognize it.
I’d heard it before, as the cave had heaved and collapsed. I’d passed it off as the stones protesting and grinding oddly against each other. Had she visited me the night before? Tried to warn me of what would come?
As if she might be an omen - a banshee.
But then, why would she be here now? In the Afterlife? If I am already dead?
Unless...not yet.
Though I fear that if her keening continues, what little parts of my soul that are still there might shatter and be lost to this place forever. She doesn’t want me here, I realize then, and I am beyond willing to oblige.
Gathering what’s left of my tattered senses, I turn, eager to put as much distance between myself and the specter as is physically possibly in the span of three heartbeats. As the space between us widens, the lighter the burdens of the banshee’s song becomes, though I dare not slow down.
Something dark laid up ahead, pitch in color and cloaked in feathery shadow. The closer I get, the wider the gate seems to yawn, as if eager to welcome my passage. And when the familiar darkness takes me, I sigh in relief. Opening my eyes, the Dark Thing faces me once again, in the exact place as before, as if I’d never left in the first place.
I heard no pounding her fist on the roof of my mouth--
And in an instant, she is gone. There was no trick at all, truly. It seemed the shadow creature was not there to play or entertain- he was exactly like her father. Trickery, not tricks to please. The creature had simply sent her home- not the home she had begun to create in Pangea, but the only home she had truly known. He had sent her back to the universe Eight held her tightly in, had not let her leave, had forced her to bide to his commands or simply waste away the hours solitary and alone.
This was not a trick or a treat that anyone would want- and Greta was furious with herself for falling into such an easy trap. She could not be here again- she could not condemn herself to this little glass fishbowl she had spent a decade in. Not when she had a taste of freedom! (Freedom, Straia had said- what would she do with freedom?) Greta had told her she was as free as she had ever been, and she could not think of a single other thing. Foolish, simple girl. Her freedom had been taken.
Greta lifted her face to the domed sky and split the air with a scream- the mere thought of being entrapped again was too much to bear. But then- she notices it is not quite right. The sky was not blue. (yes, even Eight could find some kindness to give her a sunny sky on some days). Her world was different- seeping and bleeding like a wound, a foul scent in the air and a rotting beneath her feet. This world carried death- and though Eight wished many ill wills upon her, death was never one of them.
What had this creature done to her? Was he sent by Eight to torture her as he once had? Straia would be help - the Raven queen had told her Eight would not be able to find her. Straia could fix this. And so Greta runs, far and fast and straight to any direction she may find the magician. When she had ran for miles and found no boundary - she knew this was not truly home (merely the trick of one).
‘Straia!!’ Greta calls for her queen. For help, for solace, for shelter from Eight. She hears the break of a twig, a rustle behind her, and then the magician. ‘Straia- what is happening? Why am I here?’ She rushes towards the raven queen, crashing into her safety and comfort. ‘Straia?’ She asks, when she has yet to hear a response. But it is not Straia that she looks up to. Not the Straia she knows, anyway. Her face is rotting, strips of skin peeling down like an orange, her jaw half hinged and oozing. When the creature speaks, it is guttural and spewing blood. ‘There is no Straia here.’
Greta reels backwards, eyes wide and mouth agape. The creature lunges, turning into a rotting carcass of her father (teeth outstretched like fangs and asking for skin.) And she runs- away from the dark devil that’s careening towards her seeking her death and demise. She runs through a fog growing so thick that she can taste it, through an ever growing darkness that swallows her whole.
She runs herself ragged, blindly racing towards anywhere but there. Finally, she can go no more- and she collapses to her knees, feeling beach sand beneath her and the lap of water in her ears. She looks up to see the familiar creature before her- the one who tricked her to that awful place.
‘I do not want to play this anymore, I do not think.’
but I had not put up the exit sign.
Greta
Use of minor power playing is allowed in regards to commanding her obedience.
There is a curl of fear that constricts around her heart when the others disappear.
She thinks, for a moment, that perhaps she had chosen wrong. That this was the trick and there was no treat after all. She struggles to suppress the shiver that seems to start at her hooves and rattles her all the way to the tips of her ears. But it was very evident that the only way was forward, because she was not going to stay here alone.
And if she was being perfectly honest, she wanted the treat at the end of the tunnel.
She took one hesitant step in the direction of her prize.
Then another.
But on her third step she recoiled.
She had assumed it was a mist that had blanched the path of its colors. But it wasn’t a mist at all. The entire path was obscured by webs. Intricate webs of all sizes. Some yielded immediately, but others - others clung to fetlocks and threatened to hold her in place. Again, the coil of fear tightens, but she grits her teeth. She is young, but she knows she can do this.
She has to.
So she launches herself forward, fighting her way through the maze of webs. Sweat beads on her coat as she struggles forward. And in her struggle she has given absolutely no thought to what could have spun this labyrinth.
Until she hears something. Legs. Lots of legs.
She can still see the treat at the end of the tunnel, but when she looks back over her shoulder the shadows are moving. Panic drives her baby-legs faster. She scrambles over webs and obstacles alike - leaping over fallen trees and ducking beneath the webs that threaten to entrap her permanently. And she has absolutely no intention of being someone or something’s dinner.
The sounds and shadows draw closer - close enough that she can see the spiders of all shapes and sizes - moving like one large undulating wall of darkness. She presses herself faster - faster than she’s ever run before. The girl refuses to be deterred. Not when her prize is so close.
So close she can almost reach out and touch it.
And then with one last leap she bursts through a wall of web and into the clear night air, falling into a heap before the gift she had requested. She looks back, instinctively, but the labyrinth and the spiders were gone.
She blinks, and in that moment, she opens her eyes to somewhere else.
The familiarity of it is nearly unnerving. There are trees – her trees – and for a moment she almost thinks that she is home. She blinks again, thinking that her eyes needed to adjust to the darkness, but no matter how long she stares, the colors just are not right. Everything feels dim, and there is a sense of dread that settles inside of her chest. She has never really asked her mother what the afterlife was like, prefering to keep ample space between Ryatah and herself, but she knows enough from simply living here. She has heard the stories whispered on the wind, she has watched others return from the dead, one by one.
And she also knows, since she had just been staring at them not long ago, that the gates existed. But where had they gone? Taking a few cautious steps along a well-worn path (well-worn by what, she is not exactly sure, and tries not to think too hard on it), she resigns herself to the idea that she will have to find a way out.
She has not made it far when she hears a sound.
It’s a sound that is familiar, that peculiar chittering of a language impossible for her to understand, but a language all the same.
Suddenly the air in her lungs feels like water.
Her bones feel like they are made of lead, and she is rooted where she stands when the first alien-like creature steps in her path. She scrambles backwards, never daring to turn her eyes from the knife-like tail that it flicks, almost lazy and cat-like.
It's the snap of the jaws of the one behind her that sends her bolting to the side.
She races through the trees, trying to outrun the crashing sounds behind her. She feels like she is in a nightmare, where no matter how hard she tries, she simply cannot run fast enough. Last time, Casimira had saved her. Last time, they had sunk their teeth into her sides and ravaged her with their poison but she had managed to survive. What happens when you die in the afterlife, she wonders? Running headlong along this narrow path, hardly able to see in front of her (she does remember it being foggy - where had it come from?), she is afraid she is about to find out.
The trees suddenly disappear, and even through the dark and the fog she can see that the ground she runs on is about to give way to a sheer drop off.
Spurred along purely by fear and adrenaline, and the faintest sliver of hope, she jumps.
The fall feels like an eternity, and a blink, all wrapped into one. When she hits the ground it is like being startled awake from a nightmare, but the pain the shoots through her body tells her it is real. Falling, quite literally, back through the gate, she is flooded with relief when she is assaulted by colors and life and fresh air. Even the sight of the shadowy figure is a relief, or at least, on this side of the afterlife it is.
11-11-2020, 08:37 PM (This post was last modified: 11-11-2020, 08:42 PM by rosemary.
Edit Reason: i didnt paste all my post lol
)
It's quiet.
In the blink of an eye, Rosemary is transported back to the grassy knoll overlooking the black sand cove of her home. Pale moonlight wavers over the ocean, splashing the world in an eerie enough glow that Rose doesn't notice the lack of color around her. Silver and black: the beach she's grown to love and the moon that keeps her company.
All she notices is the silence. It's overwhelming, so unearthly quiet that she can hear her heartbeat in her ears. She blinks, first looking to her left to notice the harsh bend of wind-swept grass; then to her right, where the ocean crashes more violently with each wave, frothing and foaming like a rabid dog. It's then that she sees how the shadows turn the white curls of the ocean to gray, and her head whips around to stare dumbfounded back at the bending grass. Around her, the wind whips and lashes, tying her hair in what feels like supernatural knots. What strands pass across her eyes are muted and pale, vastly different from the usual vibrant glow she wears so freely.
One attempted step forward drains Rosemary's energy down to her marrow. She sighs, rapidly blinking drooping eyelids. Delayed, sluggish panic alights in her brain like the violent wash of the stormy sea before her, but it doesn't quite fire off enough neurons to get her running. She feels stuck here, drowning in the realization that this world is hers but not quite, not really -
Where am I? she thinks, and takes another daring (daring in her fight against the weight of how this world wants to change her, to keep her) step forth. One more step is the the slope of the knoll and she thinks if she can just . . . get . . . close enough . . .
She stumbles fast like the rush of an avalanche, faster faster faster -
On the rocky, pebbled shore she lands, knees first.
Ow, Rose thinks she says, but the world around her is too much, and her tongue doesn't have the strength to make the exclamation. Weepy, exhausted eyes drift to the moon, but Rose watches in dismay as a large, black cloud slowly drifts over its light. The moon, her only friend in this trickster's world, disappearing behind more shadows can only mean something more foreboding is to come. She fears being stuck here, glued to the earth by how it wants her to be shadow and smoke - monotonous, tired, and unfeeling.
With the last swallowing of light comes a cacophony of . . . Rose slowly switches her ears. She can't tell if the noise is sirensong or demons cackling. Her eyes drift downward, toward the sound of the ocean. Where there was once dark gray swishing water is only darkness. Hundreds upon hundreds of yellow eyes blink from within its depths. They cries (of joy? rage?) grow louder.
The creatures beckon, beautiful light winking as softly as Rosemary's childhood nest. She stumbles forth, tired legs so unsteady that each hoof forward is accompanied by desperate, muscle-aching trembling. To them she must go, this she knows - they'll relieve her of this wretched exhaustion, this meaningless existence, this world without life.
"I'm coming," she murmurs, delirious, as she steps hoof after hoof into the water. Soon, the creatures' eyes surround her; and soon, so do their claws and their teeth, their joy and their fury.
It's only when her cries are silenced by the drowning water that she finds relief.
Rosemary awakes, waterlogged and exhausted, to peer up at the shadowy creature that had sent her to die.
There is a moment of uncertain silence and then the shadow thing lifts its hand and there is a flash of absolutely nothing and then she is standing back in the Cove. She feels a pang of disappointment, a glimmer of youthful petulance, as she lifts her head and surveys her surroundings. Everything is as it should be. Or so it seems at first glance.
She blinks, the eyes still glowing pale in the darkness, and realizes that there is something wrong. The world stretching out around her more closely resembles the things she sees in the daytime. Shapeless, colorless, everything seems just a shade off exactly right. She blinks again, a little harder this time, as if the problem is with her eyes.
She calls out into the darkness as if to summon her mother but nothing stirs. Even the sea sounds far away, crashing against some distant beach despite the fact that she is standing near enough that she should be able to feel the spray of the waves. She swallows thickly as a thin tendril of fear snakes through her gut and tightens like a vise around her throat.
It feels like a nightmare. It has all of the makings of a bad dream -- the draining of color from her surroundings, the sideways beat of her heart, the crushing aloneness. Her breath quickens and she wonders if this is death. The antithesis of her home.
Finally, a flash of movement catches her eye and she whips her head around in the direction of the sea. She stands stock still, her heart in her throat, her nostrils flared and her glowing eyes wide, as a figure drags itself from the waves. It staggers onto the beach. Its breath is loud and wet and it turns her stomach.
“Hello?” she calls out, her voice small, but the figure -- only vaguely equine at this stage -- does not appear to hear her. Or, if it does, it feels no urge to respond. It approaches slowly, coughing water up out of its lungs as it goes. She is frozen in place as she clouds above part and a shaft of moonlight falls over the figure. Its flesh sloughs from its sides as if it itself is liquid. Its jaw is twisted into some grotesque expression and it occurs to her that she must be dead.
This must be the Afterlife. Her greediness must have been a death sentence.
But she cannot stay here. She must get back.
The thing is close enough now to snap its crooked jaws at her. It reeks of death and decay and the sea. She squeezes her eyes shut and, paralyzed by fear, lets it take her. There is the faint shock of pain as she sucks in one last breath.
And then she awakens, standing before the shadow figure with shaking knees.
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
Avocet blinks and the Beach becomes the Pampas. Where there had been a small gathering of other horses and shadows creeping closer, the Pampas comes sweeping into view with her wildflower meadows. At first, Avocet is relieved and his lanky shape reveals this in a fluid gait. The yearling is seeking his sister. Perhaps Manikin is back. Perhaps whatever... whatever that had been - where he had gone - had claimed Manny, too.
She had come back different - without her talons and her beak. She had come back murmuring the name of the dark God - Carnage (the mere thought of the Divinity is enough to make Avo shudder) - and a story about Death and dying. But Avocet is far too young to be thinking about dying. He is young and therefore invincible. The only thing that could harm him was his mother and that was why he needed to find Manikin; she was the one who had saved him from the wrath of their dam when he had been small. All they had was each other.
(Maybe that was why this false-Pampas didn't unnerve him at first. A thought prickled in the back of his mind that it was all wrong but then most of Avocet's memories are now this way. Foggy like the mist that sometimes rolls in from the sea. Distorted like the bay colt is looking down from the Mountain but the angle is skewed. Something, somewhere deep inside Avocet knows these things are wrong but the lines between truth and fiction have been blurred by his memory-manipulating twin.)
The colt starts to slow because that feeling creeps up his spine again. He looks behind him, half-expecting to find the source for the uneasiness he feels. Avocet had almost thought to see something standing in the distance - a shape, a shadow, anything. He blinks again and thinks he sees it. It flits (a dark nothing) in his peripheral vision and the boy can't keep track of it. He blinks again and there is only the sprawling vista of bluebonnets and lady slippers and several clusters of white flowers that look like clouds. He raises his finely-shaped head and stares out at the miles that roll on and on. There is nothing there, he thinks and dismisses his fanciful mind with a shrug of his growing shoulders. It was Manny's fault. It was all her talk of dying and Magic, he concluded.
But as he turns around and walks ahead, all he gets is a couple of steps forward before that feeling comes back. It crackles up his spine like electricity; like lightning strikes.
Turning around quicker than before (surging with adrenaline and a rampant heartbeat that has started to rise), Avocet sees it. It is not dark and shadowy. It does not look like the rest of this distilled world. Popinjay is as striking here as she in the real world. The little mare smiles - jeers - at her only son and Avo darkens with dread. He darkens with dread and it turns the marrow in his bones to stone. The bay woman flares her darks wings with their red-blazes that burn in his vision like an ill-omen and the yearling bares his teeth at the mare before him. I'm sorry, Avo. He can hear Manikin say. But it was you she hated.
And he hates the way that something twists in him at that thought.
He hates the way that Popinjay leers at him even more.
Lunging forward, he thinks that he will get his revenge for every time she tried to hurt him. There will be vengeance in the leap that he makes and he (foolishly) thinks that he will strike Popinjay - the stormcaller - down where she stands. Like a child, he thinks that an action cast in the present will settle his past and will carry no precedence in his future. Avocet has no concept of how this decision will affect the days that come after. He has no way of knowing that what he does will haunt him long after this shadow world becomes nothing more than a lingering nightmare. The wing that he had been aiming for disappears. Avocet falls to the ground but gets up quickly, rounding back to his mother. He sneers and hurls infantile accusations that slide off her like rainwater. Popinjay just cackles and cackles, like nothing that Avocet says matters at all. It makes him angrier and angrier and soon enough, the anger is the only thing that makes sense.
Where there had been two wings, now there is one. Then there are none. A leg vanishes. Her chest evaporates. Each part of Popinjay that he attempts to attack only disappears into the fog while she laughs and laughs and laughs in circles around Avocet, like there is merriment in falling (fading) apart.
He keeps attacking and shredding, wild-eyed and raging. His head jerks back when the last of his bravado has left him. When the anger that had been his armor falls and the whites of his eyes are showing when he looks upon the floating head of his specter mother as he steps backwards. "Pretty eyeball," says the bobbing head before him that has a Magpie smile. "I like pretty things."
Those that answered 'trick' all disappear. Clegane shifts his weight uncomfortably, unable to settle with the thought that he had made the 'right' decision.
His broad head moves side to side, looking over those left to see if they are going to leave or stay. The thought of abandoning the group crosses his mind, but before he has time to decide if he should back away a sound like falling snow cases him to look forward again. There, suspended and glittering, is his gift.
His heart skips a beat as his silver eyes reflect its light, and without thought, he steps towards it. His attention is absorbed by its beauty, and it isn't until he has taken very many steps that he realizes he is not getting any closer. His look of awe changes to one of confusion, then frustration.
The world seems to darken then and the beach stretches impossibly long. The other horses seem to fade away and the sands narrow until he is walking on a long, pale beam - it is only a hoof-width wide, and his steps grow cautious and wobbly. The beam slices through a dark void, and at the very end, miles away, floats his gift.
From the void on either side of him, hands reach up - vaporous and ever-changing. They reach for him, and he flinches, wanting to shy but having nowhere to go but forward. He picks up his stride as quick as he dares, as the first hand swipes at his hocks. He pulls his leg forward just in time, and it passes, contactless, with a hiss. Another and another reach for him and he can not avoid them; his path can only be straight. Fingers reach for his front leg closing around his cannon bone - he gives a cry and a leap forward. But the clasping fingers are as light as mist, and though they wrap around his leg, they swirl away as he moves. His heart steadies then, and his walk on the beam steadies. Another hand appears before him, lager than the rest, and commanding him to stop with an open palm.
With a lowered head and flattened ears, he walks right through it. With this defiance the beam waverers and the sands that had faded rise up like the tide around him. The stallion leaps to meet them, landing on solid earth once again, and he thinks just maybe the shining gift is a little closer.
